The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) intervened in 4,151 financial promotions between July and September, the highest number since it began publishing data. Retail lending, investment and banking are the industries with the highest proportion of promotional advertising intervention, accounting for 95% of the total.

The FCA stressed that it had identified a number of cases of unauthorised companies and individuals taking advantage of the rising cost of living for bad promotions. During this period, the FCA issued 303 warnings to unauthorised companies and individuals, more than 20% of which were about cloning scams.

The data also details the various actions taken by the FCA to curb misleading and unfair practices by firms. For example, the FCA's intervention resulted in one company modifying or withdrawing its pay-as-you-go (BNPL) promotion 66 times across various social media platforms.

The FCA said the adverts did not give fair or prominent warnings about the risks and were misleading in terms of fees. Although the FCA has yet to regulate BNPL, it warned the company earlier this year about misleading promotions.

With this type of scam becoming more common as the cost of living rises, the FCA relaunched its ScamSmart campaign around loan fee fraud in the summer to help raise awareness among borrowers.

Source: FX110